In their mystic rituals, in monotone labour and in the rearing of their children the Chaos Dwarfs of Zharr Naggrund, and all its domains, sing. Be they doomladen dirges, rattling recitations of religious script or just simple work verses, songs are part of Dawi Zharr culture just as they are for other races.

The nature of Chaos Dwarf songs reflects their cruel nature and experiences in life. These are not songs about innocent joy, and very rarely about romantic love or homesickness. Instead they bear the grim worldview of the songs' composers and everyday singers.

These songs have very often a moral aim which would appear twisted if not sickening to many other peoples in the Warhammer world, as is the case with all lore of Chaos Dwarf folk culture. These are stanzas of death and slavery, of exploitation and heinous ritual. They record in the public memory of Chaos Dwarfs the dramatic high points in their long history filled with strife, suffering and ruthless drive for dominance and power.

Often these songs are partially or wholly undecipherable to outside listeners, even if they were to understand the Dawi Zharr language. So embedded are Chaos Dwarf life and thinking in mysticism that most cultural expressions through song would be difficult to interpret at best should any translator and scholar wish to do so.

Instead it is usually through the formative world of Chaos Dwarf childhood that their culture's values and expectations can be uncoded via stories and songs.

Chaos Dwarf children, just like most other children in the Warhammer world, live like "little adults" to quickly mature and get prepared for their often predestined adult life. Many of the songs and stories which surround the youngest are complicated adult works shared by all in family or clan gatherings. This is fundamentally no different from other races' way of life.

Even so, there exists a flaura of Chaos Dwarf children songs, who are relatively simple and generally taught to the youngest by their mothers. These are rhyme songs which, if translated, can be understood well by outside observers, since they should be intelligible to Dawi Zharr children in relatively early development.

Some parts of Chaos Dwarf children songs may be advanced enough to be lost on Human children's ears. This is because both western Dwarfs and eastern Chaos Dwarfs are intelligent races with lives of longevity and slow maturing periods. As such, many Dwarf beardlings possess more knowledge and skill in the crafts than most Human elders.

Even small Dwarf children are often able to grasp concepts which would be complicated for young Human adults. Chaos Dwarfs are no different in this regard from their distant kin. The contrast with Dwarf verses lies instead in the songs' content.

One have to understand that Chaos Dwarf songs at an early age helps instill a moral sense where greed, domination, contempt for others and complete submission to hierarchy all vie with each other and combine to create the merciless character of the Chaos Dwarf people and their monstrous empire.

These are songs of bloodshed and hardship, of carnage and conquest, of failure and damnation. They are glimpses into the psyche of these enigmatic slavers and engineers. And they are not for those weak of guts and heart.

Greenskin speech and language are crude, as are their legends and music. Their songs are usually as much an affair of screaming, grimaces, spitting, motions, stomping and violence as they are words, rythm and accompanying music. This is especially true for Orcs, whose stanzas around the campfires are not much different from their warcries. The short, thuggish songs of Orcs reflects their brute and thick nature, whilst Goblin songs are full of spite and malice, just as Goblins themselves are.

Both Orc and Goblin songs are simple and boastful, though Goblins and their Gnoblar cousins might boast mostly of cunning and torture whereas Orcs prefer to laud fell deeds of raw strength. Hobgoblin songs are, on the other hand, often longer, more coherent and more advanced than the verses of other Greenskins.

Hobgoblins are arguably the most intelligent of the Greenskin races, as is evident in their clothing, saddles, tools, armour and weaponry, all of which are more carefully crafted than the works of Orcs, Goblins, Gnoblars and Snotlings. In Hobgoblins, relatively high intelligence corresponds directly with an extremely murderous, cunning and treacherous nature. This is to be expected from Greenskins, for whom brutality and selfishness is at the core of their essence.

To some extent, the souls of Hobgoblins may be gleaned from their songs (if they had souls). More sophisticated than their Orc and Goblin counterparts, these songs are part of an oral tradition in which the Dark Lands Hobgoblins' origins on the Eastern Steppes has not been forgotten, akin to the steppe title Khan which is still very much in use.

These songs are also a reflection of the Hobgoblins' precarious middleman position as the elite slave cast of the Chaos Dwarf empire. They are the taskmasters and slave soldiers for whom service to the Dawi Zharr was a better option than wild free-for-all Greenskin freedom in the Dark Lands.

This was a devil's bargain, for once struck it may never be broken if the Hobgoblins are to survive in the Dark Lands. So hated have they become amongst the other Greenskins for their acts of treachery and servitude to Zharr-Naggrund that if the Chaos Dwarfs were to fall, or if the Hobgoblins were to strike out on their own, they would be hunted down and slaughtered en masse by vengeful Orcs and Goblins. Hobgoblins are already killed on sight by their free Greenskin cousins.

Thus it is that the Hobgoblins of the Dark Lands thrive under the Dawi Zharr's dominion, ever fearful of their ruthless masters and the hateful Greenskin hordes that roam these harsh landscapes. They are expendable cannon fodder, subject to the cruel whims of their overlords, and repeatedly suffer cullings of Khans and even tribes who become too powerful for their own good. Their songs are verbal witnesses of this reality in which they live as the detested henchmen of the Chaos Dwarfs.

Yet above all they are stanzas of paranoia and malice, of plotting and cunning, of treachery and assassination, of bloodshed and pillaging. They are just like the Hobgoblins themselves: Cruel, murderous and insidous to the core.

When the ravenous armies of the Chaos Dwarfs conquer, devastate, raid and enslave in distant lands, they leave scars upon the minds of their surviving enemies and victims which may not be visible, yet still lingers long after the Dawi Zharr have departed with their armoured cohorts, mutant beasts and winged monsters, and with their hellish war machines, slave soldiers and shackled fire Daemons. Tales and songs about such encounters are retold and sung from the Old World to Cathay.

War may be strangely exhilarating to experience, but it is also terrible. Glory is only won amongst the moans of dying enemies, lest the most brilliant stratagems and marvellous feats of engineering would be for nothing. Yet to face the fell hosts of the Chaos Dwarf empire is to come face to face with one's own raw, primal fear.

Chaos Dwarfs are the ones who trample and enslave Greenskins on a large scale. It is they who routinely quench menacing Warbosses and thus conquers the most barbaric race in the whole world. The Dawi Zharr shy from nothing to dominate and enslave. Not only mortals are found toiling in backbreaking labour for the sake of Zharr-Naggrund's might and production, but even Daemons have been made into fettered thralls.

Theirs is a dread reputation, and the Chaos Dwarfs do everything in their power to stimulate and uphold it. After all, fear is in itself a potent weapon and deterrent, and the psychological warfare one can find in a Chaos Dwarf army is as sickening as it is deliberately wrought to inspire terror in foe and slave alike.

Their hosts are adorned with trophies from ritually skinned, mutilated and burnt victims, and the very shapes of the Chaos Dwarfs' helmets and bound Daemons are intended to cow and frighten. Live slaves with cut-off limbs, gouged eyes, opened guts and flayed or scorched skins decorate giblets, war machines and even banners in most Dawi Zharr battle lines. These make a grotesque sight, yet to hear their wails and moans is possibly even worse.

The musical instruments of the Chaos Dwarfs are often possessed with bound Daemons to further increase psychological impact. Both Iron Daemons and such monsters as Lammasus and Bull Centaurs increase the terrifying impression of Zharr-Naggrund's armies. Dark sorcery, crushing artillery bombardments and cruel deeds all add up to strike fear into the hearts of the Chaos Dwarfs' foes.

Many of the verses sung about Chaos Dwarfs amongst other races stands as scattered testimonies to the dark dread experienced by enemy warriors and civilians alike. Behind these songs often lurk a grim trauma inflicted upon the minds of those enemies who composed the lines in the first place. These were men and women whose dreams were cast into nightmares by what they saw during war with the Dawi Zharr.

Although Ogres, uncorrupted Dwarfs and many Greenskins are resistant to such scars of the mind, the same cannot be said for the Skaven or the human multitude who time and time again find themselves confronting the Chaos Dwarfs' armies. Even hardened northmen have been left shaken by the sights, sounds and smells emanating from a Dawi Zharr battleline.

This is the stark reality behind most of the sagas and verses sung about the mysterious Chaos Dwarfs in foreign lands. Bear in mind the trauma and horror visited upon those who survived to tell the tale.

These are stanzas of war and slavery, of blood and arsonry, of darkness and madness, and of monstrous cruelty. Above all they are testimonies of a grim dread born out of hell itself, for to face the Blacksmiths of Chaos is to gaze into an abysmal hunger to dominate all and everything, and to break the will of every single living creature.

Awesome! Alot easier to find everything now, and woaaaah what incredible work you've done it's great the whole song concept you figured out here, nothing better to get thrown into the culture and be present than through the brain-hack of rhyming

Besides, the Passionate Axeman and An Ode to the Asscannon are MadHatter's work.

Guilty as charged, I don't give much for psychology as a science though. The visionary that was regarded a holy prophet and held governing power once would today be considered mentally ill and locked away. I believe Freuds work was nothing more than part of the conspiracy that threw the west into decadence, however I personally prefer the Cult of Slaanesh to Sigmar-worship any day of the week, say I support it but don't believe in it

Even so, I'll now have to rethink the name of my current work in progress

We are given, body and soul, to Hashut. Like it or not, we are religious fanatics. The sole reason the Dawi Zharr continue to exist is the salvation provided by our Dark Father. There needs to be due reverence given. While I don't propose that we have no culture outside of Hashut and his worship, he needs to be a central theme.

We are given, body and soul, to Hashut. Like it or not, we are religious fanatics. The sole reason the Dawi Zharr continue to exist is the salvation provided by our Dark Father. There needs to be due reverence given. While I don't propose that we have no culture outside of Hashut and his worship, he needs to be a central theme.

@Bloodbeard: Haha, thanks! I'll write out the account names in the list then. Bards wouldn't even be a profession amongst Chaos Dwarfs, but temple personel and musically inclined ordinary Chaos Dwarf men, women and children would instead play porridge poets whilst working or in their spare time, and create folksongs that way. If they caught on they'd quickly become anonymous works. Some songs are probably more ancient than the Nehekharan civilization.

Some of the cult stuff would probably involve highly educated scribes to refine and perhaps decode inner meanings by means of numerology, and cult songs could be expected to be sophisticated creations. Like the Cannibal-Core.

We're norse. It's either this or hopping in a longboat to raid the UK.

Now, what we really should do is to round up all the scandinavians, dress up in Glimpse the Void's mothers knitted big hats w. beards and tusks and go raid Forgeworld until they refocus all their attention to developing the CD's. I guess we just might take some slaves with us back aswell! If Bloodbeards brings along his students we could fix them up with some green facepaint and field them as hobgoblins?

By the way, just shout if you think I should change the categories for the song list.

Roark Wrote:

Awesome! This train has no brakes!

Also, brakes are for Elves!

MadHatter Wrote:

Now, what we really should do is to round up all the scandinavians, dress up in Glimpse the Void's mothers knitted big hats w. beards and tusks and go raid Forgeworld until they refocus all their attention to developing the CD's. I guess we just might take some slaves with us back aswell! If Bloodbeards brings along his students we could fix them up with some green facepaint and field them as hobgoblins?